Marc van der Chijs, a prominent entrepreneur and venture capitalist who helped shape the early landscape of the digital asset industry as a co-founder of the bitcoin mining giant Hut 8, is sounding a stark alarm regarding the very technology his former company has pivoted toward: artificial intelligence. In a recent shift that reflects a growing unease among tech insiders, van der Chijs expressed deep concerns that the rapid, unchecked advancement of AI could lead to catastrophic failures in global financial systems and critical physical infrastructure.
The Dutch-born investor, who famously entered the bitcoin market in 2013 and has spent the last decade championing decentralized technologies, admits that his outlook on the future of AI has darkened considerably in a very short span of time. While he continues to recognize the transformative economic power of the technology, he is increasingly skeptical about humanity’s ability to govern the "intelligence explosion" currently underway.
“I’ve become more of a doomer over the past week, to be honest,” van der Chijs said in an interview with CoinDesk. The term "doomer," once reserved for fringe internet subcultures, has increasingly been adopted by Silicon Valley veterans who believe that the trajectory of artificial intelligence may pose existential or systemic risks if not managed with extreme caution.
For van der Chijs, this realization marks a significant departure from his previous stance. He once viewed AI’s potential through the same optimistic lens he applied to bitcoin a decade ago—as a tool for liberation and efficiency. Now, however, he questions whether the window for safe implementation has already closed. “We have lost control, actually,” he stated. “And until we get the control back, I’m actually worried that we’re moving too fast.”
The Speed of Innovation vs. Human Oversight
The shift in van der Chijs’s perspective mirrors a broader movement within the tech industry. His warnings align closely with those of Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, who has been a vocal advocate for slowing the pace of "frontier" AI development. Amodei and other safety-conscious leaders have cautioned that the industry is locked in a dangerous feedback loop: as AI models become more capable, they are increasingly used to design and improve the next generation of AI, leading to recursive self-improvement that happens at speeds far beyond human comprehension or regulatory oversight.
This "structural trap" is exacerbated by the competitive pressures of the global market. Companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, along with rival nation-states, are locked in an intense race where any individual actor who chooses to slow down for safety reasons risks being left behind and losing market dominance. This "race to the bottom" on safety protocols makes systemic disruption or even catastrophic failure seem almost inevitable before international guardrails can be established and enforced.
Van der Chijs believes that the world may be heading toward a "Sputnik moment"—a major, visible crisis that serves as a wake-up call for global powers. He fears that a significant disruption, potentially one that cripples a major financial system or brings down critical infrastructure, might be the only catalyst strong enough to force governments into genuine, high-level cooperation.
AI Exposing Vulnerabilities in Legacy Systems
One of the most pressing concerns raised by van der Chijs is the vulnerability of the global banking sector. Much of the world’s financial infrastructure still relies on legacy software, some of it decades old, which was never designed to withstand the sophisticated, high-speed probing of an adversarial AI. He believes that AI could be used to identify and exploit "zero-day" vulnerabilities in these interconnected systems, potentially leading to a collapse in public confidence in traditional financial institutions.
While the underlying technology of bitcoin is often praised for its resilience and decentralized security, van der Chijs notes that the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem is not immune to these risks. He suggests that centralized crypto exchanges and other businesses built around the bitcoin network are far more vulnerable to AI-driven attacks than the immutable ledger of the blockchain itself. If an AI can compromise the interfaces and custodians that humans use to interact with crypto, the security of the underlying protocol may offer little comfort to those who lose access to their assets.
Despite these "doomer" warnings, van der Chijs remains convinced of AI’s overwhelming economic potential. He envisions a future where AI and robotics could eventually perform 90% to 95% of existing human jobs. While this would lead to a dramatic decline in the cost of goods and services—potentially ushering in an era of unprecedented abundance—it would also necessitate a total reimagining of the social contract and government revenue models.
In a world where labor is no longer the primary driver of the economy, van der Chijs suggests that governments will need to find new ways to fund public services. He floated the idea of "robot taxes" or taxes on the usage of AI tokens. However, he acknowledged the immense difficulty in implementing such measures, particularly as AI models become more localized and capable of running on private hardware, making centralized tracking and taxation nearly impossible.
Portfolio Shifts and the Enduring Value of Bitcoin
Van der Chijs’s investment strategy has directly followed his evolving views on technology. Having been an early and aggressive bull on bitcoin, he recently disclosed a significant reallocation of his personal wealth.
“I sold a lot of my bitcoin. I went into AI,” he said. This move reflects a broader trend among high-net-worth investors who have redirected capital away from the crypto markets to chase the explosive growth seen in AI-related equities and private startups. Van der Chijs believes this massive migration of capital is a primary reason why bitcoin has struggled to reach the $200,000 to $250,000 price targets that he and many other analysts had predicted for the current cycle.
However, his recent "doomer" pivot has prompted him to move some of those AI profits back into the crypto space. He is currently allocating capital back into bitcoin, primarily through the ease and liquidity of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This suggests a strategy of using AI for growth while returning to bitcoin as a hedge against the very instability he fears AI might cause.
His professional legacy is also tied to this technological intersection. He described the decision by Hut 8—the company he co-founded—to pivot from pure-play bitcoin mining toward providing infrastructure for AI data centers as “the best move ever.” From a business perspective, he argues that the case for AI infrastructure is currently stronger and more predictable than the volatile economics of bitcoin mining. He noted that if he were still at the helm of the company today, he would likely favor an even more aggressive allocation toward AI data centers over traditional mining operations.
The Search for Long-Term Stability
When looking at the investment horizon over the next five years, van der Chijs sees a complex landscape. While he expects the leading AI developers to eventually become the largest companies in the world, he believes that established entities with physical moats—such as Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPCX)—could actually outperform pure-play AI software firms like Anthropic. This is largely due to the "real-world" integration of AI into robotics and aerospace, where hardware constraints provide a layer of protection against the rapid commoditization of software.
Yet, despite his deep involvement in the AI revolution and his pragmatic business moves, van der Chijs’s ultimate conviction remains with the asset that first brought him to prominence. When asked which single asset he would choose to hold if he were restricted to only one for the rest of his life, his answer was unequivocal.
“I think of all the assets you can hold, if there’s just one, it would be bitcoin,” he said.
This final sentiment underscores the central paradox of the modern tech pioneer: a belief in the inevitable, world-altering power of artificial intelligence, tempered by a profound fear of its consequences, and a resulting reliance on the "digital gold" of bitcoin as the only truly reliable anchor in an increasingly unpredictable future. As the race for AI dominance continues to accelerate, van der Chijs’s warnings serve as a reminder that the speed of progress may eventually outrun the systems designed to contain it.
